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Brenda Temple (center) won the “A Brighter Idea” contest sponsored by Great River Energy, Runestone Electric’s power supplier. Brenda is pictured with Rick Banke (left), Runestone Electric CEO and Gary Connett (right), Great River Energy environmental stewardship and environmental services director.
This year the capital credit refund was $350,000. Checks not picked up at the Annual Meeting have been mailed. It is a well known fact that saving energy can save money. But for a rural Glenwood woman, saving energy won her $1,000!
This past summer, Great River Energy (GRE) and its 28 member cooperatives, including Runestone Electric Association (REA), launched the “A Brighter Idea” campaign to provide members with information and ideas about how to conserve energy and save money at home. As part of the campaign, members were encouraged to share their own “brighter idea” for home energy conservation. Ideas submitted were entered into a contest to win a $1,000 credit on their electric bill.
“It was a pleasure to notify Brenda Temple that her energy conservation ideas were selected as the winner among over 350 entries!” exclaimed REA CEO Rick Banke. “As REA continues to deal with the rapid increase in demand for electricity and increasing power costs, we realize that one way our members can control their energy bills is simply to use less. We appreciate the efforts of Brenda and her family, and all REA members that consciously make a difference by conserving electricity.”
“Great River Energy applauds Brenda’s innovative ideas and her enthusiasm about saving energy at home,” said Gary Connett, GRE’s environmental stewardship and environmental services director. “Many of Brenda’s ideas are easy to do, simple, and common-sense approaches. With more people like Brenda, meeting our future energy needs would be much easier.”
Brenda’s entry was not just good ideas on how to save energy. Brenda spoke from experience, detailing actual steps her family has taken to reduce costs (see below).
“I think of it as a personal challenge, a contest to see how low I can keep our electric bill,” said Brenda Temple. “I watch the usage graph on our monthly bill from REA and I can see by the graph that our efforts are paying off.”
The Temple family participates in REA’s Cycled Central Air Conditioner program – an energy conservation program that cycles the central air on and off at 15-minute intervals during peak energy demand days.
They also participate in Wellspring Renewable Wind Energy®, which is a voluntary program that allows members to pay slightly more each month to receive a portion or all of their electricity from wind power. The Temple’s are one of 268 REA member-households that subscribe to 1,135 100-kWh blocks of wind energy. Participating in Wellspring supports the continued growth and development of the wind energy industry.
“We are all affected by the rising cost of energy,” notes Mr. Banke, “and the Temple family is a great example of how we all can make a real difference.”
Brenda Temple's winning entry:
In addition to replacing most of our appliances with energy efficient appliances and replacing incandescent bulbs to CFLs, we also make sure to turn off any unused lights. To help us better control our lighting, we have replaced our porch lights with motion lights that stay on just long enough to get in and out of the doors safely. We have also set our computer monitors to power down within a few minutes if we are taken away from our work for any length of time unexpectedly.
My favorite idea that I implement is placing large items which take up space in our chest freezer to replace the food we take out. My family sure thinks it’s strange when they find 10 pound bags of flour and empty juice jugs full of ice chilling along side the pizza and hamburger! I tell them that it helps the freezer stay cool easier.
We also have top quality tinted and insulated windows throughout our house. We built a family room in the basement to help stay cool on hot days so that our AC runs less. Our family uses our ceiling fans all year long to circulate the house and keep cool.
I could list more, but you get the picture! I still think that we could do more though, perhaps a windmill to run our well pump like in the good old days? We’re always thinking around here!
Visit www.mnbrighterideas.com to read other entries in the “A Brighter Idea” contest.
Other sources for energy conservation:
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